I want to be well read

Find a mentor, a teacher, a kindred spirit that reflects your values, then allow your curiosity to take hold

value your mental development over everything until you've destroyed your life. You will find enlightenment

Read Crime and Punishment
It's good

An 18 year old wants to get into reading and you hand them a list that has Finnegan's Wake in the top five?

You should read two types of books: books that are easy and serious books.
>Easy books
This can be pretty much anything. The goal with these is to increase your reading comprehension and joy of reading. E.g., short stories are really good for this.
>Serious books
These are the books that are going to make your life better. You're going to read them over and over again throughout your life, and soon you will find yourself referencing what you've learned from them when making life decisions. If you are a Christian, these are your Bible. Start with the Greeks.

Start with the Greeks

>until you've destroyed your life
What did he mean by this?

Is start with the Greeks not a meme? Not OP but also an 18 year old. Aren't the Greeks' works just long and dated with some really stupid stuff that we know is wrong now? Do we need to study them to learn where modern thought developed from or because their works hold standalone value?

Why is it that IJ gets number 42 when it held the top spot for 2 years in a row?

Fuck ebooks.

My advice: get some short classic novellas and short stories and work through them slowly, taking notes longhand in an attempt to articulate your understanding of each section.

Recs:

1. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

2. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

3. Metamorphosis by Kafka

4. Good People by David Foster Wallace

5. Offloading Mrs Schwartz by George Saunders

You really should understand that an attention span is something to be developed and retained. It takes self-discipline, focus, and the willingness to realize you have learned something valuable only a long time after the experience of reading something.

What the fuck are they teaching you kids these days